Question For Ye

tinofapples

Lads,
I was given a Laptop at the weekend by a relative for free (Nice one). It's a Dell Latitude Pentium II 400 MHZ (It will do me for alot of things).He got a new one with the job last year and had just left the old one lying in a press in the house.

Only problem is he couldn't remember what his log on password was , he gave me the number of the company's IT guy to give him a call and explain the situation but I'd be afraid the guy would ask for the Laptop to be returned.

Is there any other way to by-pass this featue ? I thought about rebooting the whole system but I don't have the original operating system restore disk for the Laptop either ??

I tried to use my reboot disk from my desktop but that wouldn't work.

Even if I were to use another reboot disk wouldn't I have to install drivers and stuff specific to the Laptop ?

Cheers.

V1llianous

Is it the startup password or a Windows password ?

LegacyUser

if its a windows 2000 password you don't know you can change it with this boot floppy

http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/bootdisk.html

very handy disk to have in your collection

tinofapples

I'd guess you'd call it a Windows Log In Password.

My attempts to enter the password (Courtesy of my Aunts Hubbie) seem to have locked him out for now. Message appears stating this and to contact the administrator !! No thanks , I wanna keep it !!

Banana will this still work ?

moridin

for NT, win2000 or xp, yes

MarkR

Format and reinstall, it'll remove any excess crap and you'll have a nice new install. You'll probably want to do it at some stage anyway..

tinofapples

Format and reinstall

How ?

It's running Win 2000 Pro.

aidan_walsh

Place Win2000 disk in drive (you DO have the CD, don't you???), restart machine, select re-install from boot menu, reformat the partition, allow install to complete.

tinofapples

I've read Banana's link but am none the wiser for it.

As you may have guessed i am not a techie !!

Any recommendations on what I need to do plain and simple that a joe soap will be able to do ?

joePC

if your want to drop down I'll do it for a score....

Thanks joePC

PM me if interested

mr_angry

Find a techie mate who has a copy of Windows, and get him / her to do it for you.

LegacyUser

http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/bd040116.zip


download this file, its a zip file, extract the contents, open the folder that was extracted , insert a floppy disk into your a: drive and double click install.bat
it will create a boot disk

insert the disk into the laptop and start it up, you will be asked a few questions, read what they are, they are very straightforward, you can just select the default values mostly, it will ask u to to enter a new password for administrator, just enter a new password

to save the changes you have to type ! (quotation mark) and enter after changing the password and it will ask if you want to save the changes, select yes, restart and login as administrator and the new password,

its pretty straightforward, give it a go, you won't cause any harm

tinofapples

I thought about rebooting the whole system but I don't have the original operating system restore disk for the Laptop either ??

doodle_sketch ,
If only it were that simple , God only knows where that disk is , probably with the IT guy I'd guess. The only disk with the Laptop is a dell diagnostics one , there's a floppy of the same thing also .

tinofapples

bananayoghurt,
You have simplified the whole thing for me , thanks alot. I'll try all this when I go home this evening .

Thanks to everyone else also .

Fingers crossed .

ando

Originally posted by mr_angry
Find a techie mate who has a copy of Windows, and get him / her to do it for you.

thats a bit cheeky aint it

tinofapples

Banana ,
Another attempt unsuccessful I'm afraid.

Step One : Select Disk where the Windows installation is .
I just hit return as you suggested to select default

Step Two : Select path and registry files
I hit return again

Then I seemed to have an opportunity to change the password for the "Administartor" which I did but then when windows loaded and the wee log on box appeared it still wouldn't take the password that I had set.
I typed in "Administrator" & "administrator" in the username box and used the password which I had changed to "blank".

No bloody joy !!

LegacyUser

did you save the changes
ie type ! to exit and then you get asked do you want to write back the hive files to which you respond yes ?

on the odd occasion it doesn't work, go for a small password like a single letter
when it askes you to change the password see if it says entering * will blank the password, it says that on one version of the disk, blanking the password works better, if you can do that then enter * as the new password, that will make there be no password so you just login with the username administrator and no password,

if it still doesn't work try reseting a different account, when it asks which account you want to change the password of just enter a different account name

lastly before changing the password you are asked if you want to reset failed login attempts, make sure you do this

it does work, i've used it literally dozens of times on different pc's, give it another go

if it doesn't work an really desperate i'll do it for u, pm me if u need to

tinofapples

Yeah I saved the changes by typing "Y" when asked to write back the file changes.

The only two "users" I can see is "<Administrator>" & "<Guest>" . I've tried changing passwords and logging on in both these cases without any success.

Is it normal for a CHDSK (Spelling?) to run when Windows loads after all these changes have been made ?

I'll try again this evening , where abouts are you ?

Thanks again for you help.

LegacyUser

im in dcu

tinofapples

I'm in Galway so we'll forget about that. I'll keep at it for now .

Cheers Bud !!

tinofapples

I fired it up again last night without any success !!

As soon as it started up a grey/white screen appeared telling me that this computer was locked and to type the administrator password and press ENTER . Anything else resulted in the system shutting down.

I rang the Uncle and asked him to contact their IT guy and ask him for the pasword to unlock the Lappie .

I have a feeling he won't be impressed .

tinofapples

Got the call back telling me to try "blank" or "87654321" , tried both , no joy , now I'm pissed off .

Any suggestions now ?

Fionn101

Hi , many a time i've had to unlock amnesia machines (lost password) and the linux boot disk has never given me any trouble, so the only thing else you may be missing is as follows :

when you change the administrator password to blank,

then save (!)

then confirm (y)

you reboot the machine , and it brings you to the logon prompt , (here's the long shot)

have you selected workstation only (local machine) or is it still trying to logon to your relatives work domain ???


make sure it's set to workstation only (or whatever it's computer name is), else it will keep failing

but anyway that will be an old and probably messy version of windows, I recommend that you reinstall a fresh new version of windows ,

Hope this helps ,

Fionn

tinofapples

I can't get anywhere now , F2 won't allow me in to Set-Up .
I've no option but to send it back to their IT guy.

Cheers everyone

MarkR

Your best route (if you have the cd's) is a reinstall of the operating system. It is very very easy. All you need is the windows 2000, a cd with your drivers, and the product key for windows 2000. Make sure your computer is set to boot from cd (if you don't know ask).

• Put in windows cd
• Restart Computer. Keep an eye on the screen
• Press any key to boot from cd when prompted
• It'll scan your computer for several minutes, eventually displaying your partition information
• You probably have a single partition. Choose the option to delete the partition. This will wipe everything.
• Confirm that you want to do this by pressing "l". (i think it is anyway, follow what is says on screen
• Create new partition - it will default to full size
• Press enter to format new (raw) parition
• Choose either FAT or NTFS file system (not quick version)
• Sit back and answer any questions you get on the screen

Just to repeat. WILL WIPE EVERYTHING! Dial up settings, email address etc

tinofapples

Mark , I don't have the CD and it won't allow me to boot from the CD ROM !!